


Time is the Catalyst

by daredeer



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Depressed Sherlock, Drug Den, Drugs, Pining Sherlock, Sherlock-centric, Violence, only a bit though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-21
Updated: 2015-01-21
Packaged: 2018-03-08 13:45:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3211313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daredeer/pseuds/daredeer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock's descent from empty hearse to drug den, which is in no way aided by John's absence. Featuring rather a bit of pining, and quite a lot of anger; neither of which Sherlock is willing to admit.<br/>Set between 'The Sign of Three' and 'His Last Vow'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time is the Catalyst

_How goes the sex holiday?_  
 _-SH_  
11:24AM

  
 _Great! :) But, seriously, stop_  
 _calling it that._  
1:09PM

 

 _You're on holiday. You're having_  
 _a lot of sex._  
 _-SH_  
1:11PM

_I am doing other things as well,_  
 _you know. Like sunbathing._  
 _And reading. And whale-_  
 _watching._  
1:16PM

 

 _Fascinating._  
 _-SH_  
1:21PM

_And you? Getting on alright?_ _  
_1:25PM_ _

 

 _Bored._  
 _-SH_  
1:26PM

_Greg not got any cases for you?_ _  
_1:30PM_ _

 

 _No._  
 _-SH_  
1:30PM

 _And even if he did, you wouldn't_  
 _be there._  
 _-SH_  
1:32PM

_As if you need me! Just go and_  
 _flounce around SY for a bit_  
 _and see if they've got anything._  
1:39PM

 

_I need you more than you know._

**Delete.**   
  
_Ido not flounce. -SH  
1:47PM_

 

 _Try telling that to SY._  
 _Anyway, isn't this costing you_  
 _a bomb, sending these texts?_  
1:51PM

 

_Yes. -SH  
 _1:53PM_ _

  
  
_But I don't mind. -SH_  
2:02PM

 

_Me too.  
 _2:06PM_ _

  
  
_We're scuba-ing tomorrow..._  
 _Mary's idea. Wish me luck._  
7:25PM

  
  
 _Mary says Hi, by the way._  
7:28PM

  
  
 _Sherlock?_  
 _7:54PM_  
  
  
  
 _God, what a stag night_  
 _that was, right?_  
 _9:41PM_  
  
  
  
 _Stop being a brat and_  
 _answer me._  
10:54PM

  
  
 _You can't ignore me forever._  
I'm coming home in five days.  
11:07PM  
  
  
\------

  
Sunshine is beaming into the room through the dark curtains that have stayed closed for an indeterminable number of days, flipping its harsh tendrils between his eyelids and trying to pry them open. He keeps his eyes resolutely closed, screwing up his brow as he fights the light. The luminosity and direction means it's just after noon.

He rolls over, wrenching the sheets tighter around his shoulders even though he's too hot and sweating. Even though he's been able to feel tension slowly building in his calves and thighs for the past hour, and the urge to suddenly tense up all his muscles is pestering him more with every passing second; but he doesn't _want_ to because what is the _point_ in moving? Getting up; making a drink; breathing stale air and going through the motions; all the while feeling like the moment when skin meets tempting flame and for a micro-second before the white-hot pain erupts, everything is numb.

In the pocket of his floor-bidden trousers from a day or two ago, his phone buzzes twice, informing the indifferent world of its one remaining sliver of battery life. Then almost immediately after, it starts ringing.  
  
From some instant knee-jerk response buried deep in his nervous system, Sherlock's eyes snap open and he lurches out of bed. The sheets tangled around his legs prevent him from moving gracefully, and he half-falls, half-slithers to the floor, emitting an angry grunt as he bangs his wrist. Though it throbs annoyingly and will bruise, he's more enraged by the fact that he has lost the battle; the sunlight has won and he is officially, inarguably awake now.  
  
He should have been awake by now, anyway. John would have banged on the door a couple of times at least by now, yelling at him to get his lazy arse out of bed. And when he would have finally, begrudgingly emerged from slumber, there would have been scents of buttery eggs and charred toast. Cups of coffee, gone cold; the flicking of newspaper pages. He remembers John's hands, his strong hands, callused and resting on the back of his neck in the middle of his Best Man's speech- and the flames lick closer to his numb skin, and Sherlock has to answer the phone quickly before the pain comes back.

'Get out of bed, Sherlock.'

'Hello, Mycroft.'

'Stop confining yourself. Stop succumbing to it.'

There's half a hint of a waver to his brother's tone, and it fuels Sherlock's despondency.

He sits heavily back down on the edge of his bed. 'I'm not succumbing to anything.'

'You need to get out of that dismal flat. It's deteriorating your mind.'

Sherlock sniffs. 'My mind is as perfectly functional as ever.'

'The very fact that you are deliberately denying all facts in an attempt to force me to argue with you proves otherwise. You crave stimuli. Company.' There is a pause, in which Sherlock can almost see Mycroft's insufferably smug eyebrows raise. 'You miss your blogger.'

Something tears at Sherlock's insides. He ignores it.

'He's coming home the day after tomorrow-'

'Ah. _Home_. Have you ever paused to consider how Doctor Watson's definition of that word may differ to your own?'

Sherlock's lower eyelid twitches.

'I warned you about involvement.'  
  
'I'm not involved!'

'Oh, _Sherlock._ '

Sherlock growls. 'Don't disgrace me with the indecency of your pity, Mycroft.'

'I'm not the pitiful one.'

He feels himself slipping into defensive sarcasm, but there's little he can do to stop it. To stop any of it. 'Reverting back to name-calling, are we? Oh, to be seven years old again.'

'I shouldn't need to tell you that this is for your own good.'

'Then don't.'

Mycroft sighs, his breath crackly through the earpiece. 'It's time to stop living in the past, Brother mine.'

Sherlock bares his teeth in a snarl. 'Goodbye, Mycroft.'

His thumb hits the end call button like a gavel.

  
\------

  
The crack in the ceiling plaster has lengthened by a quarter of an inch since the day before the wedding. Sherlock stares until his vision blurs and his eyes sting.

His eyes are only dry from the slight breeze whispering through the open window. Perhaps he should close it. His fingertips are cold against his lips. In the corner of his vision, constantly, is his fringe. Dark, curled hair. (John would pester him to get it cut when it got too long. Once, he lost patience and cut it himself. Too short. Sherlock had slicked his hair back for a week whilst it grew out, and John had remarked on his high forehead, and how different he looked. Sherlock never had worked out if that was a good or a bad thing).

His hair is greasy now. Horribly so. It feels disgustingly slick against his forehead, contaminating his eyebrows, so he pushes it back with one hand and almost shudders at the cold, lank locks coiling between his fingers. He feels repulsed. And he feels angry with himself for being repulsed. Nothing should matter. Nothing _does_ matter. For whom- for what reason should he bother to wash his hair?

He shifts in his position and the back of his dressing-gown collar rubs, warm and slippery, at the back of his neck, and that repulsion shudders over him again. He should shower. It might make him feel better. Oh, what does he care about feeling better? He doesn't care. Caring is vulnerability.

He feels vulnerable.

He feels small and fragile, shivering like an idiot in his dressing-gown as the breeze blows stronger and shoots through the room like bullets. Delicate. He wishes he were ice, then with one small _push_ he could be on the floor, shattered into pieces, and he could forget.

No. Cowardice. He will stay on the sofa. He will not be persuaded to move just for the sake of a cool chill in the air, signifying the end of another mild English summer.

The crack in the ceiling plaster has widened by one-twelfth of an inch since the day before the wedding.

Sherlock drags himself to the bathroom and his body relishes the hot water but in his mind, each indulgent droplet is a knife's point.

  
\------  
 

'Sherlock? Sherlock, I didn't know what you wanted, so I just got you some bare necessities.'

She never knocks. Well. Why should she? Technically, it's her house.

'Sherlock, what you doing on the floor?'

Her high voice holds a touch of wary amusement. 'Come on, up you get.'  
The rustle as the carrier bag is placed on the kitchen counter. She doesn't put anything away. The last and only time Mrs Hudson looked inside their- his fridge, she screamed.

His landlady pulls out one of the dining chairs and gestures towards it with her eyes, then starts unpacking the carrier bag, taking out teabags, milk, bread, sugar. A packet of butter. A jar of raspberry jam.

Sherlock's jaw clenches.

'I'll make a cup of tea. You come sit down.'

She's wary. Sherlock usually doesn't mind when people feel wary around him. But in this instance, he minds a lot. He walks over slowly and sits, and Mrs Hudson pats his shoulder. Then she pats it again, feeling the boniness.

'I'll put some toast in, too.'

Whilst the kettle hums and the mugs clatter as she searches for one without chips in the rim or mould in the bottom, Sherlock picks up the jar of preserve and pretends to study the back of the label.

'Thought you might like that. I remember you went through about a jar a week, you and John-'

Sherlock chooses not to listen to the rest.

And then a plate of two thickly-cut pieces of toast is being set in front of him, and the salty buttery warm smell makes his mouth water and his stomach groan. He takes a small bite. Then a bigger one. A mug of tea is placed down as well, and Mrs Hudson goes to sit across from him, nursing her own cup in her palms.

Sherlock observes the tea. A burnt orange circle, darker around the edges where it meets the pale ceramic. But there's too much tannin. She's pushed the teabag against the side with the spoon, and the result will be acidic, even with milk and sugar. (John never did that. John knew to wait until the teabag had sunk entirely and the water was almost black. John knew to swirl the milk in whilst stirring with the teaspoon, anti-clockwise.) 

'Why don't you go out, Sherlock? It'll be good for you. Find yourself a nice murder or something.'

Sherlock exhales. 'There aren't any. London is particularly placid right now.'

'I could never believe that – not in a million years.'

He didn't expect her to.

'Honestly, Sherlock. Look at you,' she says, soft and concerned.

The tea in his hands is scalding his cold fingertips. He looks at her and through her all at once, debating whether he wants her concern. In the end, he smiles thinly in an attempt to persuade her that his clammy skin, week-old stubble and the stains on the cuffs of his dressing gown are no indicators of his present mental stability.

( _Remember your manners, Sherlock, however unnecessary you may find them._ )

He lets the last of his now-cold toast slip from his fingers back onto the plate. 'Thank you for the tea.'

She smiles at him.

'I remember when my old friend Wendy's husband divorced her. Oh, she took it badly- didn't leave her house for days. Wouldn't eat anything. Your heart went out to her, it really did.' She sighs and gives Sherlock a pitying look. 'Terribly sad. Grieving does that to people, you know. Changes them. She didn't have much to live for, after that-'

A pool of tea floods across the table, tumbling out from Sherlock's overturned mug.

'Sherlock!'

'Get out.'

She doesn't move.

'Get OUT!'

She jumps at the sudden change in volume, raising her hands in defence and leaves the kitchen, and two seconds later, the flat door slams home by Sherlock's palm. He locks it, the harsh edge of the key digging into the creases on his finger as he struggles furiously.

Grieving? He's not _grieving._ No one has died.

(John grieved for him, when he died. When he 'died'. John cared enough to grieve for him for two years.)

He's barefoot and cold and it hurts his toes when he kicks the coffee table. He yelps in pain but keeps kicking, stabbing viciously at the wood and glass until it's hurtling into the fireplace and will not move further. His toes burn and throb, and there's a wetness of blood on his little toe, and he wants to scream. But he won't. He feels nothing.

The puddle of tea drips monotonously off the edge of the table, keeping time.

  
\------ 

  
The receptionist looks up and smiles as the sliding doors glide to a smooth close behind him. They've never spoken, but know each other by sight well enough. She's on her second affair. (Her hair is back to its natural colour: she feels guilty and wants to end it. New earrings and bruises around her wrist: he doesn't.)

Lestrade's office is clinical. The DI is less than welcoming.

'Any cases?'

'No, Sherlock.' Lestrade underlines a word on his paperwork and the pen tip almost goes through the paper. They both know he's lying.

(He's got a teenage disappearance on his hands, and the parents are getting worse every day.)

Sherlock uses the technique he's picked up from John, and counts to ten in his head.

After a mental _'two'_ , he says, 'Anything?'

'No.'

Sherlock starts forward, heels grinding on the rough, cheap carpet. ' _Anything,_ Lestrade! My mind is stagnating- I need puzzles, I need problems-'

'Go and do a bloody crossword then!' shouts Lestrade, raising his head and showing an angry red flush on his neck, and Sherlock doesn't bother snapping back that he'd already _done_ that and completed them all, and the kitchen floor is carpeted in newspapers bleeding scrawls of blue ink and ringed letters.

Instead he raises a fist and slams it down, and coffee slops out of Lestrade's 'I heart a man in uniform' mug and onto several papers. His little finger, the one which made the first and the hardest contact with the harsh glass of the modern desk, throbs as Sherlock retracts his hand slowly and returns it to his coat pocket.

'Sherlock... listen. I'm sorry, but I can't,' starts Lestrade warily, twiddling with his cheap, standard issue biro. His eyes are open and honest and tired. 'I can't have you working- affiliated with the force, right now. I've already got an enquiry hanging over my shoulders... a-and I know I've never mentioned it, but we both know about John's firearm, and-'

(John's arm, his hand, his body, unwavering as he raised the pistol that had saved both their lives too many times to count and his eyes determined and dark and deadly, and his strong arms and the sure, determined swing of his fist in fights and dark alleyways and floodlit parks-)

'-just too risky. I'm sorry.'

Sherlock's already left, the door swinging to a soft close behind him. It takes him a mere half-hour to find a tobacconist in the area whom he hasn't paid off- he never was serious about giving up, anyway. It was only to stop John and Mycroft from annoying him with their complaints, and now John's left him, and Mycroft can go to hell.

Acrid dust curling around his tongue, and Sherlock shudders in the shock of adrenaline through his every cell. He'd missed the slow burn of a cigarette on his forefinger. Tipping his head back, he watches as the smoke rises from his lips to swirl with the rest of London's grime and ash. The wind slices into his cheeks and ruffles his hair, and he huddles around that cigarette like it's the only thing giving him life.

A security camera swivels towards him. He flips it off and stalks away through the hordes.

  
\------ 

  
Fact: John arrived back in England seven hours and eighteen minutes ago.  
It seems too soon. It was the wedding only a few seconds ago.  
 

_I see you're back where you belong-_

  
**Delete.**   
  
_Let's have dinner-_

  
  
**Delete.**   
  
_I would be glad to see you-_

Sherlock's thumb digs into the backspace button so hard his nail turns white.

  
_I miss y-_

A low-flying phone hurtles across the floor and ricochets off a chair leg.

  
\------ 

  
He'd been squinting across the road at the guardsman's left cuff at the time, trying to spot tell-tale fraying, or irregularities in pattern, or stains, or stringent hairs, or-

John had stiffened his shoulders in a barely-perceptible shiver, and his jaw had tightened briefly. This told Sherlock that his next words would be of deep significance, and the detective had braced himself. Like John, he wasn't at his most comfortable with the rich intricacies of human emotion. He'd never had much practise; he was a Holmes brother.

_'You know it won't alter anything, right? Me and Mary getting married? We'll still be doing all this.'_

He and John have not spoken, face-to-face, in seventeen days. He knows this because the image of his wedding invitation is plastered against the inside of his skull, papering the walls of his mind palace: the _Dr John Hamish Watson_ and _Miss Mary Elizabeth Morstan_ and _St. Mary's_ and _request the pleasure of your company_ and _Saturday 18 th_ _May_ and _12 o'clock_.

'The sign of three'.

Or rather, 'the sign of three plus one', or 'you, me, and two-two-one-bee' or 'two's company, three's a crowd', or 'three of a kind and one trails behind'- _whichever_ , now it's always _them,_ and _him_ ; distinct, independent, separate.  
  
Lonely.

  
\------ 

  
Sherlock sleeps to the sound of ceaseless dripping, rusting pipes and steel-toed boots on concrete. He flinches as leather strikes his back with merciless accuracy, splitting flesh, tainted with new crimson and old, congealing tar. Cold, rough, foreign tongues cut into his mind, taunting him as he tries to remember their English translations, fumbling around in his palace whilst the walls shatter to dust with each strike and the grand marble floors are fire beneath his feet.  
  
Sherlock awakens to the sound of bustling London, car horns and the distant rumble of the underground. The Doppler Effect. His palms are sweaty and his eyes are wet and the cold finger of death reluctantly slithers away from his spine even as he begs for it to return.  
  
He curls up and remembers the thudding and low groaning from the room just above him. Remembers John’s dark, distant eyes in the mornings. How he could never understand why John’s unconscious tortured him so. Why John didn’t have the willpower to take control and just _delete_ the memories.

Only now after John has left him can Sherlock truly understand, and he wants to punish himself for being unsympathetic. For being uncaring. For only ever seeing; never observing.

  
\------ 

  
John's armchair had once been an absence of kitchen. Now, it is merely an absence of John.

Sherlock moves it to John's room, along with John's favourite mug, John's medical encyclopaedia, John's holey woollen jumper which had been down the side of the sofa, and John's notebook. The last entry in it consists of John's handwriting; the words 'male. twenty three. barista. multiple incisions, gunshot to temple.' and the date '06/03/2012'.

John’s writing is sturdy, secure, the round letters stubbornly pushed into the pale fibres of 80 GSM. The curved corners of the pages are thin and flimsy, worn down over time by John’s flicking through to find the right page. It’s easy to envision him standing solid, knees locked, head bowed, the fingers of one hand splayed open on which to rest the dark leather bound cover. John’s hands are strong and steady and firm, the calluses on his left palm almost smoothed away from months without a cane.  
  
At night, when the fading summer air is humid and the covers cling to his skin, Sherlock’s mind is haunted by visions of those strong hands, which can both grip the unforgiving plastic of a pistol and tenderly apply salve to open, stinging wounds. Sherlock imagines those hands gripping the back of his neck, skimming across his ribs, leaving dark bruises on his hipbones: a determination in every touch that is so utterly, undisputedly _John_ , and he almost wants to cry when he comes into his own cold fist.  
  
  
\------  
 

(Why is John still cycling to work? If anything, it’s only making his posture worse.)

Moreover he’s panting and red-faced by the time he gets to the clinic, and practically wrestles with the contraption to get it to stay upright by the bike stands. The annoyance in his shoulders does not fade for the entire morning, and Sherlock wants to rub it out of him, to place his hands on those strong, warm, tense shoulders and feel them melt beneath his fingertips.

Once or twice, Sherlock has thought about applying as a patient and asking to see Dr. Watson. To say that he's suffering from stress, lethargy, displaced anger. (Out of the hundreds of possibilities, the most likely would be that John would punch the daylights out of him, which would be devastating for both involved.)

The practice, which is meant to promote health and positivity, is a grey slab of a building and is decorated in a fine layer of fading graffiti. The nurses and practitioners are ethereal, wandering in and out for their smoke breaks and lunch hours. John is a light among the grey. Though Sherlock can see it tainting him; streaking his golden hair with dull steel, dusting an ashen tint to the lines of his face, making his trusting eyes lose their gleam; and Sherlock knows he _needs_ _to get John out of there_ before the good doctor loses himself entirely to that grey monotony.

But he can't. Instead, he watches.

Despite his best efforts (no effort whatsoever), the pilgrimage to the run down café across from the clinic becomes habitual. He dons jeans and hoodies, sufficiently grubby, and doesn’t brush his hair (though this is hardly unusual, these days), and the moment he walks into the greasy spoon he sinks into his adopted posture and personality. The few other customers pay him no heed, and Sherlock is complacent to nurse an endless production line of stale black coffees as he sits by the smeary front windows. His elbows grow sticky from the perpetually sugary tabletop, but he has an excellent view of the front doors and second level third-from-the-right window, which are the two places John can be seen most often.

He sits down averagely four minutes before John arrives each day, matching the army man’s conditioned rigorous time-keeping. He leaves in a much more sporadic fashion after John. Most commonly, it’s little more than half an hour after Doctor Watson’s bike has turned the corner and out of sight - yet once, when the afternoon sun had already swooped low in the cloudy sky, he was prodded awake by a dubious middle-aged woman in a stained apron wanting to shut-up-shop. Not one of his prouder moments. (He hasn’t felt proud for weeks. What’s the point of pride when there’s no one there to fuel it?)  
  
  
\------  
 

 _Hi. Do you want to go out for_  
 _something to eat tonight? Or_  
 _I could come over? Feels like_  
 _ages since I last saw you._  
10:32 AM

Oh, my dear John. It’s been centuries.

  
 _Or if you’re busy, maybe_  
 _Saturday?_  
1:32PM

His thumb hovers over the ‘reply’ button for so long that the screen turns off (he doesn’t notice). He tries to delete what he’s feeling. But it doesn’t work – he tries forming his emotions into thoughts, then filing them away in his palace, but he can’t. There’s something blocking it. The realisation comes like a blow to the head: for the first time in decades, his mind is running freely, out of his control; he’s grasping at straws and the threads fall through his fingers. He’s lost control of his own mind, and it’s terrifying.  
  
The thud of his heart is heavy like a watch wrapped in cotton; each inevitable tick nudging him forwards, into the future, away from John. _  
  
_At five o’clock in the evening, on the dot, a three-legged creature begins to ascend the seventeen stairs of 221b Baker Street (not for the first time). The first trio of taps makes Sherlock’s empty stomach swoop and his eyes dart towards the door, pupils dilating in anticipation. The second muted triad is the three-four time signature, and Sherlock sighs inaudibly before assuming an indifferent, uncaring slouch, and beginning to drum his fingertips on the chair’s arm to the first section of Tchaikovsky’s _Symphony No. 3_ (the funeral march is appropriate).

Mycroft Holmes appears in the doorway and taps his umbrella. Surveying the room through half-closed eyelids, he enunciates, ‘Good Evening, Brother mine.’

Sherlock’s head tilts almost imperceptibly as a begrudging invitation. Mycroft crosses the floor to stand where John’s chair used to be, and glances at where the coffee table still lurks tipped sideways in the fireplace, unmoving since it was kicked there a few days ago. (Days? Weeks? Years?)

‘Furniture rearrangement?’ comes the smug rhetorical, and Sherlock slumps half an inch lower in his chair.

Never fazed, Mycroft remains standing in that ridiculous position of leaning half his body weight on that infernal umbrella. Sherlock is surprised the object hasn’t buckled yet.

‘Why are you here, Mycroft? Business or pleasure?’ spits Sherlock, mustering up as much venom as he can from a dry throat and staring resolutely at the opposite wall.

‘Concern. Which is only increasing the longer I stay.’

‘If you let your old friend George give me a few crime scenes, I can confirm a significant _de_ crease.’

‘Gregory.’  
  
‘Pardon.’

Mycroft’s right eyebrow twitches. ‘I have little interference with Scotland Yard at present. If you’re being deprived, it’s the department’s decision.’ He pauses. ‘I see the notion of ‘giving up’ never really settled in your mind.’

Sherlock’s thumb brushes against the yellow stain on his forefinger. ‘I see the diet is failing catastrophically.’

A tight smile.

‘If you don’t pull yourself together, I shall have to-‘

‘What? Send me back to rehab?’ Sherlock’s smiling as he half-rises from his chair in a frantic lunge forwards, but his voice is malicious and his eyes are strung through with red tangles. ‘You don’t in the least threaten me, Mycroft, and you never have.’

The elder Holmes brother is shocked by this behaviour, but one would only notice his dismay upon looking carefully at his left hand (which is pocketed, and therefore hidden).

Mycroft watches the blood pulsing erratically in Sherlock’s temple and hopes to God that Doctor Watson comes to his senses soon enough. Time is the catalyst.

   
\------  


_Sherlock?  
 _6:23 PM_ _

  
_Stop ignoring me, you git._  
 _If you’re busy with a case_  
 _then fine, but at least tell me._   
8:12 PM

  
  
 _I swear to god if this is_  
 _just your phone being dead,_  
 _I won’t be best pleased._  
8:20 PM

  
  
Ironically enough, that’s the last text he sees before his phone bleeps a forlorn dying breath and promptly switches off. For a while, it lies on the floor by his wardrobe, and then somehow gets kicked underneath.  
  
  
\------  
  
 

Sherlock waits close to ten hours in that dingy, greasy café, gripping his chipped mug of boiling coffee so tightly that his palms come away red and raw and shiny. At half-past five, John’s silhouette leaves his office window, and the light is switched off. Four minutes and thirty-six seconds later, he walks out of the front doors, as strong and compact as ever (and, as Sherlock notices with despair and satisfaction, favouring his right leg more than his left).

And when Doctor Watson’s bike turns the corner, Sherlock jogs to keep it within his sight. The air grows cool and dark, and streetlights begin to flicker on, one by one, as he passes beneath them. It’s fifteen minutes of gritty tarmac beneath his soles, and when he sets himself up with hunched shoulders at the bus stop three doors down from John’s little suburban remedy, Sherlock finds that his chest is heaving and each gasping inhale scrapes his raw trachea. Pathetic. Just because he hasn’t physically exerted himself for a while.

He digs around in the pocket of his jogging bottoms and fumbles for a cigarette, and smokes three in succession whilst John kisses his lovely wife on her powdered cheek, collapses into his unyielding armchair and flexes his knuckles compulsively. They sit down together and eat, and prattle mindless drivel about their life. Afterwards, John watches television and sips two and a half fingers of whiskey diluted by four ice cubes, and Sherlock moves to a dark corner across the road and clenches his jaw to resist the itch beneath the skin of his forearm. At some point, She becomes impatient and straddles John’s lap, and his (warm, strong) hands instinctively grip her waist.  
  
Sherlock walks back to the main road and hails a taxi.

On Baker Street there is parked a smooth car like a gleaming pool of ink. Just as Sherlock swings round the railings outside 221b, the back door opens and a woman steps out. Her heels are like children’s explosive bang snaps on the pavement.

‘May I speak with you, Mr Holmes?’

(Expensive jewellery, hair too tightly pulled back. Stress. Questioning, apprehensive – Client. Creases indicate office job. Government job. Makeup smeared on right cheek. Soft, subtle perfume – Claire de la Lune. The same sickly musk which had been infusing John’s shirt [She folds his shirts] when they’d danced the waltz over and over, John’s feet treading on his toes but he would not wince; John losing his balance and stumbling into his chest as Sherlock inhaled, and behind the familiar John scents of wool and antiseptic and leather and tea and rubbing alcohol there was the horrid, artificial sweetness of _Claire de la Lune-_ )  
  
Her face is poised as she walks through the door and looks around (their) his flat, and then scans his bedraggled attire. He gestures politely towards the sofa and asks mildly, ‘Tea?’

‘Oh. No, thank you.’ Agitation. Hastiness. Yet, hesitation.

He drags his chair forward, settles himself in it expectantly. He’s tired, and his eyes burn, and he can’t be bothered being annoyed by her reluctance to speak. She’ll get on with it, eventually. (It’s not as if he has more pressing matters to attend to).

‘I’ll get to the point, Mr Holmes,’ she begins, perched primly on the edge of the sofa cushion. Sherlock smiles blandly, wondering if he can even muster the motivation to accept this case. It’s going to be at least an eight, featuring a woman of this age, of this status in such masked anxiety, but…

She draws herself up, adjusts her thick coat, and speaks with complete delicacy, as if she expects to be sentenced for voicing the words in her throat. ‘My name is Lady Elizabeth Smallwood. I am being blackmailed by a criminal mind so influential he has the British Government wrapped around his little finger.’

Sherlock hums quietly as Jim Moriarty’s blood pools behind his eyelids. He interrupts and says, ‘I’ll take the case,’ and Lady Smallwood gives him a curt nod of gratitude before continuing.  
  
  
\------  
 

The crack den has barely changed since last he visited. Only the patrons differ.

There’s little reason for him to visit, but he is the great detective Sherlock Holmes, and he follows up all leads to their very ends, even as they appear to spiral away out of his power. The flimsy cotton of his hoodie clings to his skin with grease, because he’s seen no point in changing it for the past few days. His pores are similarly thick with salt and sweat, and his breath is warm and putrid, and the skin on his hips has developed a rash from the ratty waistband of his jogging bottoms. He’ll fit right in with the other crackheads. It’s a magnificent disguise; he’s been wearing it for weeks, it feels like, and no one gives him a second glance.

When he approaches the hallway of 221b, Mrs Hudson opens her door. Her eyebrows knit together, and she murmurs sadly. He glares at her a little more fiercely than he probably needed to, and then she closes her door again and he can hear her on the phone, talking about him, commenting, saying that he looks ghoulish and that she’s worried.

(He’s been gone for at least thirty hours now; she’ll be conducting a search party soon. The idea is almost entirely aggravating, and a tiny bit satisfying).

His nightmares aren’t an anomaly here. Fuelled by immoral chemicals, the other bodies shudder in sleep, eyes rolling behind purple lids. In the day, they lie like pale corpses in the darkness.

It would be unusual not to partake.

Once or twice, a more boisterous being will enter the room, brandishing and foaming. They are ignored, for the most part, and will soon dart away in search of vibrancy. More commonly, sharp bursts of moving creatures lurk in the shadows, behind doorframes. Gleaming smiles, wide eyes and the constant buzz of low chattering. It does wonders for one’s paranoia.  
  
Sometimes, patrons climb upright and stumble to the grotty, cracked porcelain of the communal toilet. Sometimes, they don’t quite make it, or simply can’t be arsed moving (or are unable to).  
  
The supply is often relinquished, yet always fought for with tearing nails and teeth and knives, as if there isn’t enough to go around. There is always enough.There are other ‘brands’, other choices too, but Sherlock knows better than that, and rolls his eyes at those who are lured in, their yellow hands grabbing at the next high.  
  
The patrons differ in their methods of administration, as Sherlock observes lazily. The more desperate of users line their gums and nostrils, eager for direct skin-to-powder contact. Rolling paper is sparse, but these people are inventive. There is an array of charred glass pipes reluctantly available, and crumpled cola cans and tarnished spoons will do just as well, but you’d be hard pressed to find a clean needle anywhere – never mind the equipment to dissolve a proper solution.  
  
For a while, there is nothing but the dim light dotted infrequently with glowing red dots, quiet moaning and shuffling. The hush is permeated only by the lone vehicle passing beneath the windows, and it’s almost euphoric oblivion.

There are the sounds of a scuffle downstairs, and Billy’s hoarse whine. Probably just some tosser wanting in for free.  
  
Footsteps. Quiet, quick taps.  
  
‘Isaac?’  
  
Sherlock opens one eye.  
  
Young, bleary Isaac (troubled school life; peer pressure) mumbles a name into the darkness as if fumbling for a handhold, a sturdy, reliable grip to ground himself with. ‘Dr Watson?’  
  
 _John_.  
  
John with his silver hair shining in the dusk, with his strong, warm hands helping the boy to his feet, with his age lines and his soft checked shirts and his safe voice. Brave John, storming into a crack den armed only with the humble tyre iron. And about time, too.  
  
Sherlock fights a grin. ‘Hello, John.’

John looks at him, and his eyes look so very tired.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been writing this for just over five months now, amongst studying and rushing my coursework. It's not long, but I'm proud of it. Also, no, Janine isn't mentioned (in all honesty, I forgot to write her in! smh).  
> Hope you enjoyed it! Thank you so much for reading - and if you spot the Poe reference in this, tell me in the comments :)


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